UK households hit by huge DWP error – ‘they took £20k’ | Personal Finance | Finance

Brits have claimed that child maintenance arrears have been miscalculated, as one man was purportedly charged nearly £20,000 by the Child Maintenance Service (CMS), and retrieving the funds left him out of pocket. The CMS and the now-defunct Child Support Agency (CSA) that preceded it were both set up to ensure that separated parents financially contribute to their children’s care, with CMS fully taking over its responsibilities in late 2018 following a phased process over a number of years.

Maths teacher John Hammond told the BBC he received a letter from the CSA in 2002 telling him he owed £947, but that at the request of his ex-wife the agency didn’t intend to collect it. At that point, he believed no child maintenance was outstanding and carried on with his life. But he says years later, in 2019, he got a letter from the CMS telling him he had a bill of over £19,000 to pay.

Mr Hammond, from Peterborough, says he disputed it, sending copies of the letters to the agency. Correspondence seen by the news outlet reportedly showed the DWP, which the agency operates under, telling Mr Hammond it was “unable to ascertain why” he had been told he owed the sum.

But in December 2020, whilst he was still challenging the demand, interim and final lump sum deduction orders were reportedly obtained by the CMS, and £19,269 was taken from his bank account.

His child support arrangement had terminated more than 10 years earlier, and both his children were over 25 by that point.

Mr Hammond says he was just weeks into his job at a new school when he made the “shocking” discovery by chance while checking his banking app to see if he’d been paid by his employer.

He launched a successful appeal and was awarded £8,000 in legal costs by a county court judge, who ordered that the funds must be returned, the outlet reports.

But Mr Hammond says by then had spent more than £14,000 fighting the case and says he’s more than £6,000 worse off because of the dispute, saying it “doesn’t feel like justice”.

The BBC said it spoke to dozens of parents, who claimed they had been hit with miscalculated child maintenance arrears, had had funds taken from wages or bank accounts in error, and had long disputes in court.

Many of these disputes were connected to child support arrangements that wrapped up years ago, it is reported.

The CMS has a calculation formula to work out what people should be paying, which takes into account shared care of children as well as the paying parent’s income.

A DWP spokesperson said: “The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) sets payment arrangements based on a paying parent’s income and assessment accuracy rates are consistently close to 100%.

“If parents dispute a payment arrangement decision it can be appealed, and an independent tribunal will decide if it should be changed.

“Should the paying parent fall into arrears, CMS will first attempt to arrange voluntary payments and restart regular payments to avoid further arrears. Enforcement measures are only taken if parents continue not to pay.”